Interview with C. Edwin Grimmel

Interviewer: Doug Washburn (DW)
Interviewee: C. Edwin Grimmel (EG)
DW Hello, this is Doug Washburn for the Harford County Public Library. Today is 26 October 2007; I am with the Harford Living Treasure C. Edwin Grimmel, commonly known as "Bunk" in the Jarrettsville area. Mr. Grimmel is a lifelong resident of Harford County and was nominated by his daughter.
DW Mr. Grimmel, thanks for joining me today.
EG Glad to be with you.
DW Glad to be with you. So, let's start with when you were born.
EG I was born April 8, 1923.
DW In?
EG In Jarrettsville, and by a country doctor by the name of Hugh Bradley. Mmm hmm. He lived right in Jarrettsville, right beside the Jarrettsville Methodist Church where Mr. Barwick lives now and he had one son but he died very early in life. His name was Kent. Dr. Bradley delivered me for $10.
DW Ten dollars!
EG Mmm, for delivery and the same with my brother three years later. But when the third son came along in 1930, he said Mr. Grimmel; I have to have a little more money. I got to charge $15 for this delivery. (Laughter) So he delivered all three of us boys right at home. All he had to do was walk down across the field. He lived right there where the lumber company is, Jarrettsville Hardware.
DW Oh, ok.
EG All three born in the house there.
DW Where the consignment shop is today?
EG Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm. And in former years, that used be a creamery where farmers used to take their milk, separate it and send the cream to a place in Philadelphia, I think it was, but that all went by the byway in 1920 [1923], before I was born. They closed the creamery and dad bought that place for $200, three acres of ground and the old creamery there for $200. (Laughter) That's where we grew up, right at that home there. Dad in the one business and I took another business till he started that [missing dialogue] business and then he got in the feed business and then he got into the building supply business, hardware store. And that's where we all grew up with him and he said "You stick with me
and one of these days we'll be worth something." All three of us sons stuck with Dad until he died in 1967, my Dad did. No, 1962. I inherited the farm from him and my two other brothers took the business over and that's where we split the business and we all worked together all those, about 20 years together. When he became 65 years old, he wanted to get his business straightened out and he said "Bunk, you like the farm better than these other boys do," so he got all of us together and we were all satisfied in how he divided it up. My two brothers took the business and I took the farm. Here I am today with six children and a good wife. (Laughter)
DW Since you were born in 1920, then you probably have some recollections of the Depression years.
EG Well, things certainly changed in the farming end of it, I'll tell you that. I started off with two pair of horses, one pair of mules, and one pair of horses and an old John Deere tractor. That was in 19--, I think 1942, we started. We started a dairy herd in 1943 and we produced milk for 44 years. We got out of the dairy business in 1986, and that was a long time to be with a herd of cows. (Chuckles) Milking twice a day, 365 days a year, ya know.
DW Mmm hmm.
EG That was a long time ago.
DW The cows never took a vacation, did they? (Laughter)
EG No, no. That was the trouble. You had to be here in the morning to milk them and in the evening to milk them. You couldn't change the time much on a cow. You had to have a pretty strict time. We all milked at 5 in the morning and started milking in the evening about 4 o'clock, and that was our schedule.
DW Where did you sell your milk?
EG Ours went to Baltimore City. Most of it went to Western Maryland Dairies. Do you remember the dairy called Western Maryland? It was trucked in by Jarrettsville co-op; they had three trucks that hauled canned milk into Baltimore and in the 50's most of the farmers went to the bulk system. They had the big milk tanks right on the farm, you know, and the milk tankers would come in and pick the milk up and haul it into Baltimore. When I started it was in ten gallon cans! That's how it progressed in milk production. We raised all our own feed and grew our own corn and cut silage, grew our own wheat and had our own wheat and straw we used for bedding. That's all I can tell ya about the farm. It was a good place to raise kids. I know farm life is good for the children. That's about all I can tell you about the farm. It was a lot of hard work.
DW It was a lot of hard work. (Laughter) How about where did you go to school?
EG I went to Jarrettsville High School – well, it was called Jarrettsville School. It was all twelve grades there. Same school my wife went to. She's four years younger though.
DW So this would be the first brick building.
EG Mmm hmm.
DW Roughly where the parking lot is today in front of the current brick building.
EG Mmm hmm, yea. The old school is right where the Jarrettsville Federal is. After they moved out of that, it burned about a week later. It was called the Jarrettsville Academy, that's what the old building is called, an old log constructed building. It burned in just about 1928, I think it was. I just barely remember. I was just a small kid, you know, about 5 years old when it burned. But the new school that I went to, it was two stories. Over in one end was the high school room and over on the north side was the elementary, because the elementary had seven grades in it and the high school just had four.
DW Oh, yes.
EG (Chuckled). It's a division. Young kids weren't allowed over in the high school part when we went to school. The elementary had to stay out of the high school section.
DW When did the education system change from eleven years to twelve years?
EG 1950, when they built North Harford.
DW Ah.
EG 1950 didn't have a graduating class because that's when they added the twelfth grade and that's the year North Harford was built, and I think Bel Air put a big addition to theirs in 1951. My brother hauled a lot of building material to both of those schools when they were being built, especially block and the brick.
DW So, do you remember what you did for entertainment when you were young?
EG (Laughs) We didn't have too much entertainment. Played a little softball, we did a little fishing. I didn't have much interest in football because we never had it in high school; even North Harford. They didn't have it until several years after the school was built. Mr. Pyle didn't care for football and never let the kids have football. They have a right good team now, I understand. Very good football team. But when we played at school, we played softball. In the early years, they called it speed ball. They changed the name to softball in later years. That would be back in the late 30s when they were calling it speed ball. We used to go to Bel Air to the old fairgrounds, where the shopping center is now, Harford Mall, and used to have track day. We'd go down there and play different games, speed ball and the girls would play volleyball and so forth, you know, and all the schools would come in together of Harford County and compete, you know. It was a great day, that track meet day was. We always looked forward to it.
DW Huh.
EG Mmm hmm. We kids liked to fish too. We always liked to go out and dig the fishing worms and go down to the local stream and fish and catch these little small mullets, you know, and once in awhile get an old wheel. (Chuckles) We had, there were so many boys around Jarrettsville, we all had a little ballgame on Saturday and Sunday, you know. Go in a pasture field and beat a ball around.
DW When I was growing up, we always ice skated on the pond across the road from the hardware store.
EG Yea, I remember. Mmm hmm.
DW Was that a man made pond or a natural pond?
EG That was a natural pond, yea. It had been redone about four times in my lifetime. It's a lot smaller than it was when I was a small kid. It used to be a lot larger and the water would freeze and they would cut ice off and fill these ice houses. It used to be the old-timers had ice houses underground, you know, that they'd cut the ice when it was about six inches thick and haul to them and put it in there. Generally, they'd be 18 to 20 feet deep, those old ice houses. They'd put a layer of ice down, then a layer of sawdust or straw, then they'd put another layer down. And that ice would keep practically till the end of the next summer because after the ground got a certain temperature, it didn't melt very fast. That was great. I never had to do it because when I 16 or 17, refrigeration was getting pretty popular and everybody was getting refrigerators and we kind of got out of filling those ice houses. It was a lot of work to cut ice and haul it to the ice houses and drop it down in there and had to be a couple of men down there to keep it level, you know, and put a layer down, then a layer of sawdust or a layer of straw. When you'd get it, it had to be washed completely. That melted it a little too, you know. (Laughter) Oh, my gosh. I know when I was a young boy, there weren't many tractors to farm with, it was mostly with a team, mules, you know, and horses and everything horse drawn equipment. Weren't many tractors in existence till after about 1940, after World War II started. Tractors got more popular because so many farm boys were taking off into the service, you know, and made a labor shortage and farmers had to get something to do the work of another man. They most all bought tractors and tractor equipment. Very seldom you see any horse drawn equipment around this area but you got to Lancaster County to see the horse drawn equipment. (Laughter)
DW Yea, yea.
EG Yea, you go up there and you say that to old timers around here and they start to work…the Amish don't like electricity and they don't care for rubber tires.
DW How about other businesses in the village there other than your Dad's hardware store, the old general store?
EG Old general store was right there on the corner where the Citgo Station is now.
DW Right.
EG It's operated by two fellows, one is Clarence Burton and the other is Pete Taylor. And in one end of the store was a post office and up at the front area as you go in the main door is a small place that's a barber shop, and on the far end of the same building was where the Jarrettsville Building and Loan was located. It was the Harford Bank at that time but at the beginning of the Depression Harford Bank went bankrupt, you know. It closed down and Jarrettsville Building and Loan took it over and in later years built where they are now. There was four different businesses in that building. There was the Jarrettsville Store, Jarrettsville Post Office, barber shop, and the Jarrettsville Building and Loan.
DW Big yellow! I remember it.
EG Yea! And that new building has been built onto twice, I think, where they are now. They remodeled it just about four years ago, you know, and then about 15 years ago they put an addition to it. Nice little banking system right down there. You don't ever worry about them, they're right popular and they treat you very well. They keep the interest rates down, you know, where they have people that want to borrow money, you know, they're very reasonable. You got a good bunch of directors in there. Good bunch of men. I think there's nine on the Board, I think it is.
DW On the corner where the, it's Keene Dodge garage annex was the second firehouse but originally that was the old hotel.
EG Hotel, uh huh.
DW Was that operational when you were young?
EG Not much. When I remember it, Mr. Charles German had it and his wife was a telephone operator and in one room is where she had to take the in calls and give out calls, you know. She was a telephone operator. But I think in 1939, they built their own building, it's burned down now, it's on the upper end of Keene's lot. I guess you remember.
DW Oh, yes.
EG You asked. Margaret worked in there for Ms. German. Mmm hmm.
DW My mother, too.
EG Did she? I remember…
DW Occasionally.
EG I remember Margaret working in there. Margaret and Wilbur.
DW Telephone office was in the garage.
EG I believe it was, yea.
DW The switchboard was in the back room in the house.
EG Then when dial system came along in the early '40s, they built a separate building right beyond the house. You remember that? It's still up there. I think Keene uses it for an office. I think that building is still there. It's frame building and that's where the dial system was set up. I think it was one of the first ones in Harford County, I think it was, dial. The one Ms. German operated was called a switchboard and had to plug the things in you know that make connections. The old hotel used to have a big large building behind it for what they called liberty stable. When the travelers used to come through the town and couldn't make it to the next town, they'd stay there at the what they called old hotel and they had living quarters but I don't think they served much food but the building behind it where they put up the horses, the horses had to be fed at night you know and the next building is where the Southern States office is now and used to be a liquor store. That started out when I was just a small boy. Mr. Charles Sinclair had it for a garage. He sold cars by the name Star and that company didn't last long. Star went out of business and then he took on a Duran car and that did last but about five or ten years. Then he hooked up with Chrysler Motors. You know, they had Dodge and Plymouth and then on in 1939 is when they built the garage where Keene is now but Keene had built onto that garage a couple of times. One or twice, I think, and changed it all around and right on the corner where the car lot is or on that side is where Mr. Ward had his big home. He was Postmaster at Jarrettsville post office. T. Harry Ward was his name. He was a big man and I think Mr. Sinclair bought that house right after he died. I forget what year he died. Mr. Sinclair, Charlie Sinclair made five apartments out of that house. Two apartments on the first floor, two on the second floor, and up on the third floor had one apartment. Five different, well, that one apartment Dr Thomlison, it was two doctors had residence. Dr. Borden, when World War II came along he had to go to service and Dr. Thomlison took it over and he rented about five years before he built one over on Houcks Mill Road where Doc White was.
DW Yea.
EG I think Thomlison was just over there about five years when Dr. White bought the place and he took over and he died just a few weeks ago, wasn't it? Dr. White passed away a few weeks ago.
DW Yes. Yes.
EG We had some good doctors around Jarrettsville years ago. (Laughter) But old Bradley was over antique. He was the one who delivered us. (Laughter) That's where Barwick lives now. Mr. Barwick, right beside Jarrettsville Methodist Church. He never changed that house hardly any. I think the only thing they did to it was put different siding on it, you know, and maybe changed it around. It looked the same as it did 60 or 70, well, I'm 80 [84] years old, I can remember back when I was about 5 years old.
DW Barwick was, he did TV repairs…
EG Mmm hmm. He did repairs there and then they had a shop on Fallston Road where the old Scarborough feed mill used to be. You go up Harford Road and turn left and go toward Pleasantville and right in the valley there. It's a landscaper that owns that now but that used to be, one section of that used to be where Barwick fixed TVs. Just a small office on the end of that feed mill.
DW Hmm.
EG Both of the Barwick boys are dead now. Roy died I guess twelve years ago or better and Harold died about I guess six years ago. That's his brother. I guess you remember them Barwick boys, don't you?
DW Uh, not exactly, but I do remember the TV repair.
EG Mmm hmm. Yea, both boys were hooked up with the TV repair. They were a good bunch of boys but they both went to Jarrettsville School. Roy was almost my age; he was about two years younger than I was. He's the older boy. He's been dead at least twelve years. His wife is the one that goes around and mows a lot of these yards. She mows out at Jarrettsville Cemetery, and a lot of different homes and she's up close to 80 years old and works just like a man. (Laughter) Yea, she's done a good job of mowing. She's got a good mowing service.
DW Well, you had mentioned the Southern States there; across the street was the old firehouse…
EG Mmm hmm. That was built in about 1933.
DW 1933. Was that the first firehouse in Jarrettsville?
EG Mmm hmm. They just had one engine and after they built the firehouse – they used to keep that one engine at Kurtz Funeral Home under the old shop, that old building across the road. That old building used to contain the funeral home on one end and the wood shop on the other end and they used to keep it in the basement. And then in 1933 they built that small firehouse and added another engine. We just had two fire trucks for years and years down there until about 19--, about 1958 or 59, we got the third one and now we buy two at a time. (Laughter) I think we have 19 pieces of equipment counting the ambulances. Yep, we have the sub-station up at Black Horse, you know, there's four pieces of equipment up there and 15 down here. That's the chiefs' cars and the Women's Auxiliary, they have a vehicle now and they've got four fire trucks… (Laughter). Yep. I've been in the company 66 years. I joined the fire company in 1941. I was 18 years old, I think I was. I got in young because World War II had just been declared and they were pulling a lot of men out of our company, you know, and they didn't have anybody to call and they had to take these young boys into the company. So, Jack Tipton, Arch Taylor, Gladdie Kurtz, Jim Hess … there was a lot of boys that went in about 1941, I think it was when I went in and all during World War II. You see that war went on for four years and they had to take a lot of young men in. The company formed in 1929 and they kept expanding and four years later after they stop forming the company, they didn't have any place to keep any more trucks then they had to build the first firehouse across from where Southern States is. And the next firehouse, where Keene owns now, was built in 1953, yea, 1953. And this third firehouse was built in 1990, '91 I think we took possession of it and each firehouse gets larger and larger. (Laughter) Yea, I've seen a lot of action in my 66 years of being a fire fighter.
DW Have they always had an ambulance service?
EG 1956 is when the first ambulance, the Lions Club they started them off. They started a drive for an ambulance then they put the first ambulance in service 1956 and so happened, I think Mrs. Jarrett fell and broke her hip and she was the first patient hauled in it and then your cousin, ─
DW Gordon.
EG Gordon was the second one, I think. It all happened within two days. The first calls came in was Mrs. Jarrett which happened at nighttime and Gordon playing at ball, the engine got its second call.
DW (Laughter) 1955, I think it was 1956 when they put it in. I forget which year it was but I think it was 1956 when they put the first ambulance in service. That ambulance was a Cadillac and it was built low and there wasn't much headroom in there to work on a patient, you know. Now they call these big box ambulances and they got plenty of space in them you know. You got a lot of working space for a patient when you're traveling, transporting them to the hospital. I enjoyed being with that fire company. They didn't get paid anything, it was volunteer. (Laughter) I've seen a lot of action in my time, a lot of bad action, especially burn patients. They burn up in cars and burn up in homes, you know. It's not a very good sight, I tell you. Yes, sir.
DW Do you remember when Jarrettsville got the traffic light?
EG (Laughter) Yea, but I forget what year it was.
DW Ok.
EG I know it started off with four way stop signs, then it was a blinker light and then they went with a two traffic light but I can't remember the year they did it. There wasn't much traffic back then in those early years. I tell you that. Even when they had the stop sign, our old veterinarian, Dr. Gross, used to come down through there and he would just slow up. He wouldn't stop and just go around the corner if he was going west, just slow up and go to the left. Stop signs didn't mean anything. (Laughter) There wasn't any traffic. My gosh, has the traffic increased. You can see the difference practically every year. Traffic has increased on this165.
DW Yea?
EG I think every place it's been increasing. Yea, that's about all I know about the country.
DW It's not country any more.
EG No, I forgot to tell you about the marble cutter. I remember old Mr. Taylor with his marble business up there making monuments, you know.
DW Mmm hmm.
EG He was a little short man and he was jolly fellow. He certainly was a nice man, Mr. – his name was Jesse C. Taylor. In later years when he became older, Mr. Pete Shelton – I guess you remember Pete Shelton, and he took the business over.
DW Yep.
EG He died fairly young too. Pete was just 61, I think, when he passed away. He had a problem with his heart.
DW I didn't realize that.
EG Mmm hmm. He's buried in Jarrettsville Cemetery and I think I saw on the stone, I think he died in the early '60s, '61 or '62. He must have been born in the early teens, I guess it was. I know he was young in age, you know.
DW Was Waters Hardware still run by Amrein when you were little?
EG Yep. That store was built the same year I started elementary school in 1929, and they had that little shop out almost in the road, had a little hardware business and blacksmith shop there and they said he used to put shoes on horses, you know, metal shoes and had this little hardware business. But that large store, I guess they worked on it almost a year because I had to walk to school because there wasn't any bus transportation back. You had to live two miles away from school before you could even ride the bus. And the first bus driver was Mr. St. Clair. I had one they called "Old Chessie" it was called Flint – Flint Motor Company. It was made in Detroit. They went out of business very quickly but the body was an all wood body and the seats -- had benches on each side of the bus and had a seat in the middle. They weren't seats like they have nowadays. They were just like benches down one side of the bus, one on this side and one down the middle. When you went down the road you were riding sideways. (Laughter) Some of the kids called it "old cabbage crate". There comes the old cabbage crate. But just like Dick had said if you lived any distance away from school, the first five years you had a bus you had to pay to ride then after the county got involved in it you rode free. I think the county got involved about 1932-33, during the Depression. The next couple buses he got came at the time he was in the Dodge business so everything was Dodge chassis, you know, and factory built bodies. Back in those days there wasn't much traffic on the road anyway. (Laughter) But, you know, it seemed like nowadays so much traffic – every week you hear of a bus mishap in the county. We had one yesterday evening down near Forest Hill. The driver passed out. The bus was empty and he was going to Forest Hill Elementary. It happened right below the colored church here on Old Jarrettsville Road. He passed out and I think he hit a pole and he went over in the corn field. There was a picture in The Aegis paper and the bus is sitting over in the corn field. There's a lot of mishaps and so much traffic, you know, and I don't think they screen these drivers close enough for medical purposes. I understand he had a heart by-pass about five years ago and then I think he was medicated for diabetes too. A lot of these accidents are caused by overmedication. Drivers over medicate themselves and then they pass out and cause an accident. Yea, that's about all I know about the school buses. I know, I never rode one to school in my life. I had always had to walk. I just had a half mile to walk from where the business was but Mr. Waters store was built between 1929 and 1930 because it was the first year I started to school and Momma used to take us on bad days in a car, in an old Ford car she had. First car was an old Model T Ford that Dad owned and the next one was called a Jordan. It was a lot larger car but they didn't make cars very many years. A lot of these companies you know, four or five years, they couldn't afford to manufacture cars, you know. They went bankrupt, couldn't pay for the material and a lot of old cars….one was Maxwell, I remember and even Pierce Arrow didn't stay in business long. Did you ever hear of one called Franklin? Franklin car? Mr. Kurtz, the undertaker had one. A Franklin. They were considered a large car at the time. I can't think of a lot….
[Side One of Tape Ended]
DW Let me see. Now you've talked about J.C. Taylor and Mr. Kurtz, and obviously, one of them is a headstone maker and one of them is the casket maker…
EG Mmm... casket maker …
DW So who was first, since they were across the road from each other basically?
EG I know Mr. Kurtz, old Martin Kurtz's father, his name is Ed Kurtz, he started the business in 1844, his undertaking business. I just don't know what date Mr. Taylor started but it was back in 1800s.
DW Yea, but it was more like the 1870s so I guess Mr. Kurtz was first.
EG Yea, 1844, I know that's when Mr. Kurtz started the business. They celebrated the 150th anniversary in 1990, that'd be 1994. Young Kurtzes had their jackets made "Kurtz Funeral Home, established 1884" when old Mr. Kurtz started that business. That would be the young Gladdie, so his great-grandfather…
DW Eighty-four…I thought you said '44… it was '84…
EG No, 1840….1844 when they started
DW Oh, '44, ok.
EG Yea, 1844, when old Mr. Kurtz decided to establish the funeral business. I know it was 150 years old just about ten years back, you know.
DW We should talk about other businesses in the area….how about Madonna Garage? When was that built?
EG That was built back in the early '50s, I think it was. Mr. Henry Johnson owned it. He owned just a small wooden garage right across from Almony's Store where the bank is now, where the Commercial Bank is. I don't know who owns that bank now. It's been changed four times. [Laughter] And, he built, I think it was in the early, maybe late '40s, right after World War II. He built that garage over there where Doug Verzi owns now. I think Verzi still owns it. He leases [missing dialogue], didn't he? It's closed now. The owner built another right behind it, another garage. Right there where Tommy Simons used to have his but it stands empty. It's for rent. This owner had been out of it for over six months and hasn't rented the building.
DW You know, I heard they were going to tear that down.
EG They may but I don't know. They had a rental sign up there for a while but I think that's gone. They might be doing something because lots of times you see surveyors around that area, you know. I believe that may tear it down to make more turning space up there for traffic.
DW Hmm.
EG Seen down Jarrettsville the other day they stayed there the whole day, "Traffic Engineers" was written on the car. They were doing a little surveying and the fellow in the car sat there all day, he took a camera, I think it was. Sat right there on the lot and had a State car sitting there and he sat in it practically the whole day because I passed there a couple of times and I thinking he was counting and checking the cars, counting them. But that's a bad place in the morning to even get to. My brother George said the other day, well last, every once in a while, he said it was stopped clear up above the cemetery. The light would change two or three times before they could get through the intersection. Yea. The old cemetery, I'm on the Board of the cemetery and I forget when that was established in Jarrettsville because Old Jarrettsville Methodist Church, it wasn't called Jarrettsville, it was called Calvary, my mother said it was an old wooden church that was torn down in the early '20s. The same way up here at Salem Church, right up here across from Mr. Abe Wilson's. That, Salem, she went to Sunday School and Church there when she was a young girl and that had been torn down about 80… 70, 80 years ago. A lot of these old wood churches had burial grounds and most of them are kept up quite well.
DW Was the Frame Methodist Church next to the graveyard or where the [missing dialogue] building is?
EG It is right there, as you go in there's a big pine tree and it set right near that pine tree, my mother said. That cemetery has been added on to because they bought the ground from Mr. Tipton way back in the late '20s. The upper part of the cemetery was added onto then. That was back in the early '20s she said and the church was torn down before that. She said both of those churches – Salem up here at Mr. Wilson's and this other one was torn down about the same time. Both of them were Methodist churches, I understand. I don't know why they tore both of them down but both of them were old frame churches and they weren't in very good condition and I guess maybe attendance fell off also. But I have been a member of the Jarrettsville church since I been a kid, baptized Methodist and went to Sunday School there and joined the church when I was twelve years old and when I married Dixie, converted her – I mean she transferred her membership from Lutheran to Jarrettsville Methodist but our congregation now has fell off terrible. A lot of these Methodist churches are having problems with attendance. A lot of these new ones are starting up now, these non-denomination churches. They can get a crowd. In eight or ten years they've got a heck of a crowd. They must be doing something right. [Laughter] I don't know. Yea. This one right beside our firehouse, they've just been in existence about fifteen years. They started out just a small congregation, up here at Marcoum Plumbing, just that one room and they kept getting larger and larger. I forget what they call that church down there. Youth's Fellowship, I think it was but now they've outgrown this church, they even bought property next to me where that colored fellow lived – Bond – you know? They bought that place just the other day.
DW Hmm.
EG They were going to add on. I don't know it they are going to add on or build a new church and keep the old one for church school for the young kids, I guess. They've got a lot of plans. I didn't know it until just the other day that they bought Mr. Bonds' farm but it's not a very large place – five acres—all the old buildings will be torn down.
DW How about the old Daughton store that became Bircham's?
EG I remember old Mr. Daughton. He was a nice fellow. When he became 65, I think, or 70, he let Mr. Birch take over. Mr. Birch hired his nephew, Herb Jenkins, he continued the business. He sold the old store to Forest Hill Bank and that was torn down and a new bank built there, and Birch built that new store, now it's been torn down and a medical building has been built in the place of the old store. Yea, that property has changed hands considerably.
DW Mmm hmm.
EG The drug store was built a couple years after the bank wasn't it? I forget which one was built first. The drug store or the bank?
DW I don't remember.
EG There wasn't too many years difference in the building of them, you know. The druggist, he certainly was a good asset to the community. He started out down there in that little building where the Southern States has their office now, and then they built a little larger store and he retired about four years ago.
DW Let's see. Johnson's Saw Mill. Did you know, of course, I remember Don Johnson and Bill, but did you know Don's father?
EG Yea, it went to William, didn't it? William Johnson. He had a good family too but everyone of them was killed in service. Paul was the youngest boy, that was Don's brother, he was killed over in the European War. He was in my class at school. I had three of them in my class that volunteered for service: Paul Johnson, Lloyd Buntz, and Mutt Dalton. All three of them went into service about the same time and none of them came back. All of them were killed overseas. One of them drowned, I forget what happened. The boat sank or something, the boat was hit by a torpedo and he drowned and the others were killed, shot to death. But all three of them never finished school, they joined the service in the tenth grade and none of them returned. There have been several drafted into the service Upton Academy and Charlie Weeks but they all made it back. There's been quite a few of them that in late classes in 1941 were taken into service. A lot of them lied about their ages. They'd been 16 or 17 and go and say, "I'm eighteen." I'm good to go in. They didn't check you too closely. Some of them when they found out they were youngsters, they sent them back – they discharged them and told them to come back – a couple sixteen year old boys – they said come back in two more years and we'll take you.
DW How about rationing in World War II?
EG Well, that was something else. Your sugar was rationed, your shoes, automobile tires, you couldn't hardly buy a tire for a car. You had to either – my buddy, Jim Hess, he'd take an old tire and he'd cut the band, where it fits on the rim, he'd cut that all off both sides and dismount the good tire and flip it over. Then, by gosh, it would heat up and then they'd have problems with the other tire, you know. Too much friction there in hot weather.
DW Mmm hmm.
EG But gasoline was short, 3 gallons a week was all you were allowed with the ration book unless you hauled – if you worked out at Martin's or a defense place –you could get almost all the gas you wanted. A sticker was the least and B sticker you were allowed I think, I forget how many gallons you were allowed on it. But my Dad was in business, he could get those T stamps and he was allowed $200 per sticker and he could get gas and truck tires anytime but truck tires was hard to come by back during the war when they were rationing. You had to have a very good job in defense to get new tires for automobiles and they were recapping them but the recaps weren't in very good shape back in those days. They were just beginning to recap tires, you know, and they didn't hold up too well. They were made out of reclaimed rubber and that wasn't worth a darn. You were lucky to get 4,000 miles out of some of those recaps but most times they went bad before … I know one fellow put them on and in one week they were gone. [Laughter] Yea, there were a lot of things they were rationing in the food line. Sugar and meats were rationed. They were really strict on the meats, sugar and shoes and that kind of stuff. There was a lot of other things that were being rationed, you needed ration books stamps to get whatever you were going to buy, you know. But as soon as the war was over, most of that, you know, was disbanded, done away with but that rationing in the first days, they were quite strict.
DW Well, let me see. Changes, I guess. Let's talk about changes in the county. Anything change for the better?
EG Well, a lot things are better. I know we rebuilt several roads. A lot these roads around the county were gravel back in my early life. We had crushed slate in Delta and bring it down and put it on for a base but that wasn't practical. It cut too many tires even though it was crushed down to real small but it cut tires so badly and in time they made the county quit using it and then they went with crushed stone. A lot of these county road were rebuilt with slate base, you know, crushed slate but most all the roads now in the county are tar and chip roads or blacktop. There are a few gravel roads. I think Eden Mill, that road is still gravel. There are several of them around. You can get around but buses are forbidden to travel a road unless it's a gravel, school buses, you know. I think some of these macadam roads, if you don't have yellow line down it, the buses are not required to go down those roads. Some of them are so narrow two buses – over there on Rush Road – over in back of, near Rocks State Park, it's so darn narrow in places two cars can hardly pass but it's a macadam road but it's not lined. A lot of the county roads just have the main yellow line down the middle and don't have the white ones on each side. Yea, the buses are restricted off those. I know they can't travel gravel roads at all; they have to be hard surface.
DW There's only one stream you can still ford in the county that I know of.
EG Which one's that?
DW Up around Tabernacle Church, there's no bridge.
EG No bridge.
DW [Laughter]
EG Yea, there used to be a lot of little creeks and streams you had to ford across when I was a young boy. One over on Knopp Road, one on Schuster Road, several of them around here. And over here on Cox Road. When I was a young kid – hey, I know one fellow every week he'd put – on Schuster Road, he take his car and pull it and let it set there and wash it on both sides. Roy Daughton was his name and he had a nice Chevrolet car. He was about four years older than I was. Yea, every Saturday he'd go down and stop right there; had a pair of boots he'd put on and wash his wheels, wash the body. Yea, they used them for several different purposes. When I was on the fire trucks, we'd pump water out of a lot of streams out there. Some of them had bridges over the streams but I pumped out of the streams, you know. If you need water, just go there. Lots of times we had to dam it up a little bit you know, to get water deep enough for the suction hose to charge the hose to load the water. One night we pumped a lot of muddy water in our truck and we had trouble with it but that was over in Baltimore County. Yea, I had a lot of experiences with the fire company and I had a lot of experiences on the farm. I have been attacked by a bull twice on my own farm when I was in the dairy business. One attacked me and just kept throwing me around. As soon as I would get up on my hands and knees to get away it would hit me again and throw me about eight or ten feet. My pants were all torn off. The only thing that saved me was I was close to a barbed wire fence and I rolled underneath the fence. The barbed wire was this high off the ground, the first strand was, I rolled underneath and I laid there a good while. That old bull was up and down that fence trying to get me. About fifteen minutes later he got far enough away that I could get up and get to my pickup truck. My pickup truck was in the field. I was trying to separate some young cows from the other cattle and here that darn bull was in the same pasture and he got me.
DW Wow.
EG I think he, I had a dog with me, I think that's what happened. He was after the darn dog and he hit me and got me down and then he worked me over. He threw me about five or six times and every time he threw me, I'd get up on my hands and knees, he'd get a good hold on me and throw me. When I would land I would land on that old grass. I was all grass stained, shirt torn off.
DW But he didn't have any horns.
EG No horns.
DW That was a good thing.
EG But when you're underneath a place like that, it's [missing dialogue]
Hamilton Amoss was hurt with a bull down in Florida. Hamilton Amoss used to buy a lot of cattle and ship them out of the country. He was loading a boat down there and a darn bull got him. The bull was going up the shoot onto the boat and happened to turn around in the shoot and come back down and Hamilton Amoss had a cane and was beating him on the head with the cane. The bull got him and threw in the air and Hamilton came right down on his shoulder and head and he had to spend about two weeks in the hospital down in Florida. You remember Hamilton, used to have the livestock up near Upper Cross Roads, that big farm just as you go on the cross roads, that little homestead.
DW Yea.
EG He was a good cattle dealer. He produced milk too. He had a large dairy herd there. He had one daughter, too. And John Cairnes married her. John Cairnes married Hamilton Amoss's daughter. (Background speaker said her name was Carolyn.) John's marriage didn't work out.
DW Well, how about changes in the county for the worst?
EG Hmm, there's been a lot of things happen. I don't know what I could say about that.
DW You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. [Laughter]
EG There's been so many darn things. I wouldn't know what to say about that. There's been a lot of things I think I forgot to tell you! [Laughter]
DW Well, we're coming up on the end of the tape. Is there anything else you would like to convey to the listeners…memories?
EG There's a lot of memories but I can't think of them right now.
DW Well, that's ok. You've provided a lot of good information on specific locations of businesses and things that I didn't remember.
EG I know Kefauver Lumber Company – Dad and Mr. Kefauver went into business about the same time in the building supply business and were awful good competitors. They got along great, you know, by being competitors. If we didn't have a certain item and the customer wanted it, we'd go down and borrow it from them and when our shipment come in, we'd return it to him and he did the same thing with us. [Laughter] If he had run out of material or had to go out on a job right away, he'd come up and borrow it for a few days until his shipment come in. We worked together like that. Mr. Kefauver was a wonderful man, Melvin Kefauver. All his brothers died. The last one died just about two months ago. He worked at the business. Luther was his name and they all called him Junior Kefauver. He lived right at the end of Sharon Road, just past Kefauver's, you know. He lived right on the corner. You know where Norman Amrein lived, he lived the third house in, Norman did and Kefauver lived right on the corner. And a fellow by the name Kelp, he was a carpenter, he lived in the middle. All three of those houses were built [missing dialogue] along as you go in off the Jarrettsville Road there. Norman Amrein, when he was born and raised he lived right in that house right opposite, it used to be an old schoolhouse. Cooktown School it used to be, converted over to a home years ago.
DW Torn down, not too many years ago. Wasn't it?
EG No, no, they remodeled that thing.
DW Oh, they remodeled?
EG Let's see, which one did they tear down? It was they tore down in our area. You know, up here at Jim Foard's, that used to be a colored school, you know. That was converted over to a home. Jim owns that. I don't know of anything…I remember one happening in 1958, we had a terrible storm, 36 inches of snow and it put a cow barn down of ours, had 40 some cattle in there and we lost 18 of them, I think it was. I guess you remember that one too.
DW Oh, yes! Nothing moving but the army weasels. [Laughter]
EG That's right! [missing dialogue]
DW I remember that one well. [Laughter]
EG And a hay barn out in the field that would stand, I know. It was made out of concrete block but we built one out of frame, Mr. Bill Kenley built it. Lightning struck it two years after it was built. I think it was built in 1946 burned the same year we were married, 1948. It burned just a month before we got married. We got married in 1948. Dad said build it out of block and we built it out of block. Most of these buildings around this area on the farm, I laid the block in them. I like to lay cinder block. I had help to put the roof on. It was a lot of work. We had two carpenters put the truss roof on. That's been standing there ever since 1949. I built, a year after we were married, I built it. We'd keep our hay and straw in it. I don't know of anything else.
[Background speaker said, "The labor on this house."]
Yes, hey, when we built this house in 1962, the carpenter's labor was $2.10 an hour and the block mason, Mr. Ness, from Shrewsbury, he was $2.35 an hour and the helper, the one that carried the block and brick and made the mortar, he was $1.75. [Laughter] Just think what it is now, 45 years later. They say a stone mason gets anywhere from $40 to 50 an hour. They are very expensive, the stone masons. Yea, labor has gotten terrible, even on the farm. When Dad first started - bought the farm, his dad died and he bought the farm from the widow. Dad was just paying $30 a month for labor but he furnished them a house, electric, fuel and give them half a beef, and hog, and milk every day for $30 a month, a dollar a day for farm help. If he had to hire a man without all those privileges, you have to pay him about $2 or $3 an hour. Yea, that's one thing that's increased more than anything else is labor. You just take your car to the garage and what do they get for an hour in the garage? Jack Saneman he works for BMW, he works out at Towson garage and he said they just jacked their labor in the shop to $110 an hour.
DW That's not even wall time, it's flat rate shop. [Laughter]
EG Oh, God! And John Deere owned tractors, they're $80 and $90 now, I understand. Labor certainly has gotten very expensive, I tell you. Well, that's about all I can think of right now.
DW That's good. That's fine.
EG I can remember dates quite well. George Cairnes said he never saw a fellow that could remember dates like I can. [Laughter] He often calls up here and says, "When did this happen? I know Bunk would know." Sometimes he calls up and I can't give him the correct date. Seems like some people are good on other things and others can't remember a thing. My brother George can remember dates also; he's darn good on dates and when things happened. My other brother, Walt, I don't think he cares much about dates, all he thinks about is the damn whiskey bottle. [Laughter] Yea, but he's a good strong man. I guess you remember Walt, don't you. Big ole hands, got them from handling so much cinder block and brick. I guess we three boys did well by sticking with Dad and we came out of school, he said, "You stick with me, you'll be worth something one of these days." So all three of us stuck with him.
DW Well, I either need to change tapes or say thank you, one of the two. Do you want me to change tapes.
EG Yea.
(Background voice says, "Well, do you have anything else to say?"
EG No, I'm about through.
DW Ok, well, I'll just say thank you for your time.
EG I'm glad you came, glad to be with you, Doug.
DW Ok.
EG Glad to be with you.

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Transcript

Interviewer: Doug Washburn (DW)
Interviewee: C. Edwin Grimmel (EG)
DW Hello, this is Doug Washburn for the Harford County Public Library. Today is 26 October 2007; I am with the Harford Living Treasure C. Edwin Grimmel, commonly known as "Bunk" in the Jarrettsville area. Mr. Grimmel is a lifelong resident of Harford County and was nominated by his daughter.
DW Mr. Grimmel, thanks for joining me today.
EG Glad to be with you.
DW Glad to be with you. So, let's start with when you were born.
EG I was born April 8, 1923.
DW In?
EG In Jarrettsville, and by a country doctor by the name of Hugh Bradley. Mmm hmm. He lived right in Jarrettsville, right beside the Jarrettsville Methodist Church where Mr. Barwick lives now and he had one son but he died very early in life. His name was Kent. Dr. Bradley delivered me for $10.
DW Ten dollars!
EG Mmm, for delivery and the same with my brother three years later. But when the third son came along in 1930, he said Mr. Grimmel; I have to have a little more money. I got to charge $15 for this delivery. (Laughter) So he delivered all three of us boys right at home. All he had to do was walk down across the field. He lived right there where the lumber company is, Jarrettsville Hardware.
DW Oh, ok.
EG All three born in the house there.
DW Where the consignment shop is today?
EG Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm. And in former years, that used be a creamery where farmers used to take their milk, separate it and send the cream to a place in Philadelphia, I think it was, but that all went by the byway in 1920 [1923], before I was born. They closed the creamery and dad bought that place for $200, three acres of ground and the old creamery there for $200. (Laughter) That's where we grew up, right at that home there. Dad in the one business and I took another business till he started that [missing dialogue] business and then he got in the feed business and then he got into the building supply business, hardware store. And that's where we all grew up with him and he said "You stick with me
and one of these days we'll be worth something." All three of us sons stuck with Dad until he died in 1967, my Dad did. No, 1962. I inherited the farm from him and my two other brothers took the business over and that's where we split the business and we all worked together all those, about 20 years together. When he became 65 years old, he wanted to get his business straightened out and he said "Bunk, you like the farm better than these other boys do," so he got all of us together and we were all satisfied in how he divided it up. My two brothers took the business and I took the farm. Here I am today with six children and a good wife. (Laughter)
DW Since you were born in 1920, then you probably have some recollections of the Depression years.
EG Well, things certainly changed in the farming end of it, I'll tell you that. I started off with two pair of horses, one pair of mules, and one pair of horses and an old John Deere tractor. That was in 19--, I think 1942, we started. We started a dairy herd in 1943 and we produced milk for 44 years. We got out of the dairy business in 1986, and that was a long time to be with a herd of cows. (Chuckles) Milking twice a day, 365 days a year, ya know.
DW Mmm hmm.
EG That was a long time ago.
DW The cows never took a vacation, did they? (Laughter)
EG No, no. That was the trouble. You had to be here in the morning to milk them and in the evening to milk them. You couldn't change the time much on a cow. You had to have a pretty strict time. We all milked at 5 in the morning and started milking in the evening about 4 o'clock, and that was our schedule.
DW Where did you sell your milk?
EG Ours went to Baltimore City. Most of it went to Western Maryland Dairies. Do you remember the dairy called Western Maryland? It was trucked in by Jarrettsville co-op; they had three trucks that hauled canned milk into Baltimore and in the 50's most of the farmers went to the bulk system. They had the big milk tanks right on the farm, you know, and the milk tankers would come in and pick the milk up and haul it into Baltimore. When I started it was in ten gallon cans! That's how it progressed in milk production. We raised all our own feed and grew our own corn and cut silage, grew our own wheat and had our own wheat and straw we used for bedding. That's all I can tell ya about the farm. It was a good place to raise kids. I know farm life is good for the children. That's about all I can tell you about the farm. It was a lot of hard work.
DW It was a lot of hard work. (Laughter) How about where did you go to school?
EG I went to Jarrettsville High School – well, it was called Jarrettsville School. It was all twelve grades there. Same school my wife went to. She's four years younger though.
DW So this would be the first brick building.
EG Mmm hmm.
DW Roughly where the parking lot is today in front of the current brick building.
EG Mmm hmm, yea. The old school is right where the Jarrettsville Federal is. After they moved out of that, it burned about a week later. It was called the Jarrettsville Academy, that's what the old building is called, an old log constructed building. It burned in just about 1928, I think it was. I just barely remember. I was just a small kid, you know, about 5 years old when it burned. But the new school that I went to, it was two stories. Over in one end was the high school room and over on the north side was the elementary, because the elementary had seven grades in it and the high school just had four.
DW Oh, yes.
EG (Chuckled). It's a division. Young kids weren't allowed over in the high school part when we went to school. The elementary had to stay out of the high school section.
DW When did the education system change from eleven years to twelve years?
EG 1950, when they built North Harford.
DW Ah.
EG 1950 didn't have a graduating class because that's when they added the twelfth grade and that's the year North Harford was built, and I think Bel Air put a big addition to theirs in 1951. My brother hauled a lot of building material to both of those schools when they were being built, especially block and the brick.
DW So, do you remember what you did for entertainment when you were young?
EG (Laughs) We didn't have too much entertainment. Played a little softball, we did a little fishing. I didn't have much interest in football because we never had it in high school; even North Harford. They didn't have it until several years after the school was built. Mr. Pyle didn't care for football and never let the kids have football. They have a right good team now, I understand. Very good football team. But when we played at school, we played softball. In the early years, they called it speed ball. They changed the name to softball in later years. That would be back in the late 30s when they were calling it speed ball. We used to go to Bel Air to the old fairgrounds, where the shopping center is now, Harford Mall, and used to have track day. We'd go down there and play different games, speed ball and the girls would play volleyball and so forth, you know, and all the schools would come in together of Harford County and compete, you know. It was a great day, that track meet day was. We always looked forward to it.
DW Huh.
EG Mmm hmm. We kids liked to fish too. We always liked to go out and dig the fishing worms and go down to the local stream and fish and catch these little small mullets, you know, and once in awhile get an old wheel. (Chuckles) We had, there were so many boys around Jarrettsville, we all had a little ballgame on Saturday and Sunday, you know. Go in a pasture field and beat a ball around.
DW When I was growing up, we always ice skated on the pond across the road from the hardware store.
EG Yea, I remember. Mmm hmm.
DW Was that a man made pond or a natural pond?
EG That was a natural pond, yea. It had been redone about four times in my lifetime. It's a lot smaller than it was when I was a small kid. It used to be a lot larger and the water would freeze and they would cut ice off and fill these ice houses. It used to be the old-timers had ice houses underground, you know, that they'd cut the ice when it was about six inches thick and haul to them and put it in there. Generally, they'd be 18 to 20 feet deep, those old ice houses. They'd put a layer of ice down, then a layer of sawdust or straw, then they'd put another layer down. And that ice would keep practically till the end of the next summer because after the ground got a certain temperature, it didn't melt very fast. That was great. I never had to do it because when I 16 or 17, refrigeration was getting pretty popular and everybody was getting refrigerators and we kind of got out of filling those ice houses. It was a lot of work to cut ice and haul it to the ice houses and drop it down in there and had to be a couple of men down there to keep it level, you know, and put a layer down, then a layer of sawdust or a layer of straw. When you'd get it, it had to be washed completely. That melted it a little too, you know. (Laughter) Oh, my gosh. I know when I was a young boy, there weren't many tractors to farm with, it was mostly with a team, mules, you know, and horses and everything horse drawn equipment. Weren't many tractors in existence till after about 1940, after World War II started. Tractors got more popular because so many farm boys were taking off into the service, you know, and made a labor shortage and farmers had to get something to do the work of another man. They most all bought tractors and tractor equipment. Very seldom you see any horse drawn equipment around this area but you got to Lancaster County to see the horse drawn equipment. (Laughter)
DW Yea, yea.
EG Yea, you go up there and you say that to old timers around here and they start to work…the Amish don't like electricity and they don't care for rubber tires.
DW How about other businesses in the village there other than your Dad's hardware store, the old general store?
EG Old general store was right there on the corner where the Citgo Station is now.
DW Right.
EG It's operated by two fellows, one is Clarence Burton and the other is Pete Taylor. And in one end of the store was a post office and up at the front area as you go in the main door is a small place that's a barber shop, and on the far end of the same building was where the Jarrettsville Building and Loan was located. It was the Harford Bank at that time but at the beginning of the Depression Harford Bank went bankrupt, you know. It closed down and Jarrettsville Building and Loan took it over and in later years built where they are now. There was four different businesses in that building. There was the Jarrettsville Store, Jarrettsville Post Office, barber shop, and the Jarrettsville Building and Loan.
DW Big yellow! I remember it.
EG Yea! And that new building has been built onto twice, I think, where they are now. They remodeled it just about four years ago, you know, and then about 15 years ago they put an addition to it. Nice little banking system right down there. You don't ever worry about them, they're right popular and they treat you very well. They keep the interest rates down, you know, where they have people that want to borrow money, you know, they're very reasonable. You got a good bunch of directors in there. Good bunch of men. I think there's nine on the Board, I think it is.
DW On the corner where the, it's Keene Dodge garage annex was the second firehouse but originally that was the old hotel.
EG Hotel, uh huh.
DW Was that operational when you were young?
EG Not much. When I remember it, Mr. Charles German had it and his wife was a telephone operator and in one room is where she had to take the in calls and give out calls, you know. She was a telephone operator. But I think in 1939, they built their own building, it's burned down now, it's on the upper end of Keene's lot. I guess you remember.
DW Oh, yes.
EG You asked. Margaret worked in there for Ms. German. Mmm hmm.
DW My mother, too.
EG Did she? I remember…
DW Occasionally.
EG I remember Margaret working in there. Margaret and Wilbur.
DW Telephone office was in the garage.
EG I believe it was, yea.
DW The switchboard was in the back room in the house.
EG Then when dial system came along in the early '40s, they built a separate building right beyond the house. You remember that? It's still up there. I think Keene uses it for an office. I think that building is still there. It's frame building and that's where the dial system was set up. I think it was one of the first ones in Harford County, I think it was, dial. The one Ms. German operated was called a switchboard and had to plug the things in you know that make connections. The old hotel used to have a big large building behind it for what they called liberty stable. When the travelers used to come through the town and couldn't make it to the next town, they'd stay there at the what they called old hotel and they had living quarters but I don't think they served much food but the building behind it where they put up the horses, the horses had to be fed at night you know and the next building is where the Southern States office is now and used to be a liquor store. That started out when I was just a small boy. Mr. Charles Sinclair had it for a garage. He sold cars by the name Star and that company didn't last long. Star went out of business and then he took on a Duran car and that did last but about five or ten years. Then he hooked up with Chrysler Motors. You know, they had Dodge and Plymouth and then on in 1939 is when they built the garage where Keene is now but Keene had built onto that garage a couple of times. One or twice, I think, and changed it all around and right on the corner where the car lot is or on that side is where Mr. Ward had his big home. He was Postmaster at Jarrettsville post office. T. Harry Ward was his name. He was a big man and I think Mr. Sinclair bought that house right after he died. I forget what year he died. Mr. Sinclair, Charlie Sinclair made five apartments out of that house. Two apartments on the first floor, two on the second floor, and up on the third floor had one apartment. Five different, well, that one apartment Dr Thomlison, it was two doctors had residence. Dr. Borden, when World War II came along he had to go to service and Dr. Thomlison took it over and he rented about five years before he built one over on Houcks Mill Road where Doc White was.
DW Yea.
EG I think Thomlison was just over there about five years when Dr. White bought the place and he took over and he died just a few weeks ago, wasn't it? Dr. White passed away a few weeks ago.
DW Yes. Yes.
EG We had some good doctors around Jarrettsville years ago. (Laughter) But old Bradley was over antique. He was the one who delivered us. (Laughter) That's where Barwick lives now. Mr. Barwick, right beside Jarrettsville Methodist Church. He never changed that house hardly any. I think the only thing they did to it was put different siding on it, you know, and maybe changed it around. It looked the same as it did 60 or 70, well, I'm 80 [84] years old, I can remember back when I was about 5 years old.
DW Barwick was, he did TV repairs…
EG Mmm hmm. He did repairs there and then they had a shop on Fallston Road where the old Scarborough feed mill used to be. You go up Harford Road and turn left and go toward Pleasantville and right in the valley there. It's a landscaper that owns that now but that used to be, one section of that used to be where Barwick fixed TVs. Just a small office on the end of that feed mill.
DW Hmm.
EG Both of the Barwick boys are dead now. Roy died I guess twelve years ago or better and Harold died about I guess six years ago. That's his brother. I guess you remember them Barwick boys, don't you?
DW Uh, not exactly, but I do remember the TV repair.
EG Mmm hmm. Yea, both boys were hooked up with the TV repair. They were a good bunch of boys but they both went to Jarrettsville School. Roy was almost my age; he was about two years younger than I was. He's the older boy. He's been dead at least twelve years. His wife is the one that goes around and mows a lot of these yards. She mows out at Jarrettsville Cemetery, and a lot of different homes and she's up close to 80 years old and works just like a man. (Laughter) Yea, she's done a good job of mowing. She's got a good mowing service.
DW Well, you had mentioned the Southern States there; across the street was the old firehouse…
EG Mmm hmm. That was built in about 1933.
DW 1933. Was that the first firehouse in Jarrettsville?
EG Mmm hmm. They just had one engine and after they built the firehouse – they used to keep that one engine at Kurtz Funeral Home under the old shop, that old building across the road. That old building used to contain the funeral home on one end and the wood shop on the other end and they used to keep it in the basement. And then in 1933 they built that small firehouse and added another engine. We just had two fire trucks for years and years down there until about 19--, about 1958 or 59, we got the third one and now we buy two at a time. (Laughter) I think we have 19 pieces of equipment counting the ambulances. Yep, we have the sub-station up at Black Horse, you know, there's four pieces of equipment up there and 15 down here. That's the chiefs' cars and the Women's Auxiliary, they have a vehicle now and they've got four fire trucks… (Laughter). Yep. I've been in the company 66 years. I joined the fire company in 1941. I was 18 years old, I think I was. I got in young because World War II had just been declared and they were pulling a lot of men out of our company, you know, and they didn't have anybody to call and they had to take these young boys into the company. So, Jack Tipton, Arch Taylor, Gladdie Kurtz, Jim Hess … there was a lot of boys that went in about 1941, I think it was when I went in and all during World War II. You see that war went on for four years and they had to take a lot of young men in. The company formed in 1929 and they kept expanding and four years later after they stop forming the company, they didn't have any place to keep any more trucks then they had to build the first firehouse across from where Southern States is. And the next firehouse, where Keene owns now, was built in 1953, yea, 1953. And this third firehouse was built in 1990, '91 I think we took possession of it and each firehouse gets larger and larger. (Laughter) Yea, I've seen a lot of action in my 66 years of being a fire fighter.
DW Have they always had an ambulance service?
EG 1956 is when the first ambulance, the Lions Club they started them off. They started a drive for an ambulance then they put the first ambulance in service 1956 and so happened, I think Mrs. Jarrett fell and broke her hip and she was the first patient hauled in it and then your cousin, ─
DW Gordon.
EG Gordon was the second one, I think. It all happened within two days. The first calls came in was Mrs. Jarrett which happened at nighttime and Gordon playing at ball, the engine got its second call.
DW (Laughter) 1955, I think it was 1956 when they put it in. I forget which year it was but I think it was 1956 when they put the first ambulance in service. That ambulance was a Cadillac and it was built low and there wasn't much headroom in there to work on a patient, you know. Now they call these big box ambulances and they got plenty of space in them you know. You got a lot of working space for a patient when you're traveling, transporting them to the hospital. I enjoyed being with that fire company. They didn't get paid anything, it was volunteer. (Laughter) I've seen a lot of action in my time, a lot of bad action, especially burn patients. They burn up in cars and burn up in homes, you know. It's not a very good sight, I tell you. Yes, sir.
DW Do you remember when Jarrettsville got the traffic light?
EG (Laughter) Yea, but I forget what year it was.
DW Ok.
EG I know it started off with four way stop signs, then it was a blinker light and then they went with a two traffic light but I can't remember the year they did it. There wasn't much traffic back then in those early years. I tell you that. Even when they had the stop sign, our old veterinarian, Dr. Gross, used to come down through there and he would just slow up. He wouldn't stop and just go around the corner if he was going west, just slow up and go to the left. Stop signs didn't mean anything. (Laughter) There wasn't any traffic. My gosh, has the traffic increased. You can see the difference practically every year. Traffic has increased on this165.
DW Yea?
EG I think every place it's been increasing. Yea, that's about all I know about the country.
DW It's not country any more.
EG No, I forgot to tell you about the marble cutter. I remember old Mr. Taylor with his marble business up there making monuments, you know.
DW Mmm hmm.
EG He was a little short man and he was jolly fellow. He certainly was a nice man, Mr. – his name was Jesse C. Taylor. In later years when he became older, Mr. Pete Shelton – I guess you remember Pete Shelton, and he took the business over.
DW Yep.
EG He died fairly young too. Pete was just 61, I think, when he passed away. He had a problem with his heart.
DW I didn't realize that.
EG Mmm hmm. He's buried in Jarrettsville Cemetery and I think I saw on the stone, I think he died in the early '60s, '61 or '62. He must have been born in the early teens, I guess it was. I know he was young in age, you know.
DW Was Waters Hardware still run by Amrein when you were little?
EG Yep. That store was built the same year I started elementary school in 1929, and they had that little shop out almost in the road, had a little hardware business and blacksmith shop there and they said he used to put shoes on horses, you know, metal shoes and had this little hardware business. But that large store, I guess they worked on it almost a year because I had to walk to school because there wasn't any bus transportation back. You had to live two miles away from school before you could even ride the bus. And the first bus driver was Mr. St. Clair. I had one they called "Old Chessie" it was called Flint – Flint Motor Company. It was made in Detroit. They went out of business very quickly but the body was an all wood body and the seats -- had benches on each side of the bus and had a seat in the middle. They weren't seats like they have nowadays. They were just like benches down one side of the bus, one on this side and one down the middle. When you went down the road you were riding sideways. (Laughter) Some of the kids called it "old cabbage crate". There comes the old cabbage crate. But just like Dick had said if you lived any distance away from school, the first five years you had a bus you had to pay to ride then after the county got involved in it you rode free. I think the county got involved about 1932-33, during the Depression. The next couple buses he got came at the time he was in the Dodge business so everything was Dodge chassis, you know, and factory built bodies. Back in those days there wasn't much traffic on the road anyway. (Laughter) But, you know, it seemed like nowadays so much traffic – every week you hear of a bus mishap in the county. We had one yesterday evening down near Forest Hill. The driver passed out. The bus was empty and he was going to Forest Hill Elementary. It happened right below the colored church here on Old Jarrettsville Road. He passed out and I think he hit a pole and he went over in the corn field. There was a picture in The Aegis paper and the bus is sitting over in the corn field. There's a lot of mishaps and so much traffic, you know, and I don't think they screen these drivers close enough for medical purposes. I understand he had a heart by-pass about five years ago and then I think he was medicated for diabetes too. A lot of these accidents are caused by overmedication. Drivers over medicate themselves and then they pass out and cause an accident. Yea, that's about all I know about the school buses. I know, I never rode one to school in my life. I had always had to walk. I just had a half mile to walk from where the business was but Mr. Waters store was built between 1929 and 1930 because it was the first year I started to school and Momma used to take us on bad days in a car, in an old Ford car she had. First car was an old Model T Ford that Dad owned and the next one was called a Jordan. It was a lot larger car but they didn't make cars very many years. A lot of these companies you know, four or five years, they couldn't afford to manufacture cars, you know. They went bankrupt, couldn't pay for the material and a lot of old cars….one was Maxwell, I remember and even Pierce Arrow didn't stay in business long. Did you ever hear of one called Franklin? Franklin car? Mr. Kurtz, the undertaker had one. A Franklin. They were considered a large car at the time. I can't think of a lot….
[Side One of Tape Ended]
DW Let me see. Now you've talked about J.C. Taylor and Mr. Kurtz, and obviously, one of them is a headstone maker and one of them is the casket maker…
EG Mmm... casket maker …
DW So who was first, since they were across the road from each other basically?
EG I know Mr. Kurtz, old Martin Kurtz's father, his name is Ed Kurtz, he started the business in 1844, his undertaking business. I just don't know what date Mr. Taylor started but it was back in 1800s.
DW Yea, but it was more like the 1870s so I guess Mr. Kurtz was first.
EG Yea, 1844, I know that's when Mr. Kurtz started the business. They celebrated the 150th anniversary in 1990, that'd be 1994. Young Kurtzes had their jackets made "Kurtz Funeral Home, established 1884" when old Mr. Kurtz started that business. That would be the young Gladdie, so his great-grandfather…
DW Eighty-four…I thought you said '44… it was '84…
EG No, 1840….1844 when they started
DW Oh, '44, ok.
EG Yea, 1844, when old Mr. Kurtz decided to establish the funeral business. I know it was 150 years old just about ten years back, you know.
DW We should talk about other businesses in the area….how about Madonna Garage? When was that built?
EG That was built back in the early '50s, I think it was. Mr. Henry Johnson owned it. He owned just a small wooden garage right across from Almony's Store where the bank is now, where the Commercial Bank is. I don't know who owns that bank now. It's been changed four times. [Laughter] And, he built, I think it was in the early, maybe late '40s, right after World War II. He built that garage over there where Doug Verzi owns now. I think Verzi still owns it. He leases [missing dialogue], didn't he? It's closed now. The owner built another right behind it, another garage. Right there where Tommy Simons used to have his but it stands empty. It's for rent. This owner had been out of it for over six months and hasn't rented the building.
DW You know, I heard they were going to tear that down.
EG They may but I don't know. They had a rental sign up there for a while but I think that's gone. They might be doing something because lots of times you see surveyors around that area, you know. I believe that may tear it down to make more turning space up there for traffic.
DW Hmm.
EG Seen down Jarrettsville the other day they stayed there the whole day, "Traffic Engineers" was written on the car. They were doing a little surveying and the fellow in the car sat there all day, he took a camera, I think it was. Sat right there on the lot and had a State car sitting there and he sat in it practically the whole day because I passed there a couple of times and I thinking he was counting and checking the cars, counting them. But that's a bad place in the morning to even get to. My brother George said the other day, well last, every once in a while, he said it was stopped clear up above the cemetery. The light would change two or three times before they could get through the intersection. Yea. The old cemetery, I'm on the Board of the cemetery and I forget when that was established in Jarrettsville because Old Jarrettsville Methodist Church, it wasn't called Jarrettsville, it was called Calvary, my mother said it was an old wooden church that was torn down in the early '20s. The same way up here at Salem Church, right up here across from Mr. Abe Wilson's. That, Salem, she went to Sunday School and Church there when she was a young girl and that had been torn down about 80… 70, 80 years ago. A lot of these old wood churches had burial grounds and most of them are kept up quite well.
DW Was the Frame Methodist Church next to the graveyard or where the [missing dialogue] building is?
EG It is right there, as you go in there's a big pine tree and it set right near that pine tree, my mother said. That cemetery has been added on to because they bought the ground from Mr. Tipton way back in the late '20s. The upper part of the cemetery was added onto then. That was back in the early '20s she said and the church was torn down before that. She said both of those churches – Salem up here at Mr. Wilson's and this other one was torn down about the same time. Both of them were Methodist churches, I understand. I don't know why they tore both of them down but both of them were old frame churches and they weren't in very good condition and I guess maybe attendance fell off also. But I have been a member of the Jarrettsville church since I been a kid, baptized Methodist and went to Sunday School there and joined the church when I was twelve years old and when I married Dixie, converted her – I mean she transferred her membership from Lutheran to Jarrettsville Methodist but our congregation now has fell off terrible. A lot of these Methodist churches are having problems with attendance. A lot of these new ones are starting up now, these non-denomination churches. They can get a crowd. In eight or ten years they've got a heck of a crowd. They must be doing something right. [Laughter] I don't know. Yea. This one right beside our firehouse, they've just been in existence about fifteen years. They started out just a small congregation, up here at Marcoum Plumbing, just that one room and they kept getting larger and larger. I forget what they call that church down there. Youth's Fellowship, I think it was but now they've outgrown this church, they even bought property next to me where that colored fellow lived – Bond – you know? They bought that place just the other day.
DW Hmm.
EG They were going to add on. I don't know it they are going to add on or build a new church and keep the old one for church school for the young kids, I guess. They've got a lot of plans. I didn't know it until just the other day that they bought Mr. Bonds' farm but it's not a very large place – five acres—all the old buildings will be torn down.
DW How about the old Daughton store that became Bircham's?
EG I remember old Mr. Daughton. He was a nice fellow. When he became 65, I think, or 70, he let Mr. Birch take over. Mr. Birch hired his nephew, Herb Jenkins, he continued the business. He sold the old store to Forest Hill Bank and that was torn down and a new bank built there, and Birch built that new store, now it's been torn down and a medical building has been built in the place of the old store. Yea, that property has changed hands considerably.
DW Mmm hmm.
EG The drug store was built a couple years after the bank wasn't it? I forget which one was built first. The drug store or the bank?
DW I don't remember.
EG There wasn't too many years difference in the building of them, you know. The druggist, he certainly was a good asset to the community. He started out down there in that little building where the Southern States has their office now, and then they built a little larger store and he retired about four years ago.
DW Let's see. Johnson's Saw Mill. Did you know, of course, I remember Don Johnson and Bill, but did you know Don's father?
EG Yea, it went to William, didn't it? William Johnson. He had a good family too but everyone of them was killed in service. Paul was the youngest boy, that was Don's brother, he was killed over in the European War. He was in my class at school. I had three of them in my class that volunteered for service: Paul Johnson, Lloyd Buntz, and Mutt Dalton. All three of them went into service about the same time and none of them came back. All of them were killed overseas. One of them drowned, I forget what happened. The boat sank or something, the boat was hit by a torpedo and he drowned and the others were killed, shot to death. But all three of them never finished school, they joined the service in the tenth grade and none of them returned. There have been several drafted into the service Upton Academy and Charlie Weeks but they all made it back. There's been quite a few of them that in late classes in 1941 were taken into service. A lot of them lied about their ages. They'd been 16 or 17 and go and say, "I'm eighteen." I'm good to go in. They didn't check you too closely. Some of them when they found out they were youngsters, they sent them back – they discharged them and told them to come back – a couple sixteen year old boys – they said come back in two more years and we'll take you.
DW How about rationing in World War II?
EG Well, that was something else. Your sugar was rationed, your shoes, automobile tires, you couldn't hardly buy a tire for a car. You had to either – my buddy, Jim Hess, he'd take an old tire and he'd cut the band, where it fits on the rim, he'd cut that all off both sides and dismount the good tire and flip it over. Then, by gosh, it would heat up and then they'd have problems with the other tire, you know. Too much friction there in hot weather.
DW Mmm hmm.
EG But gasoline was short, 3 gallons a week was all you were allowed with the ration book unless you hauled – if you worked out at Martin's or a defense place –you could get almost all the gas you wanted. A sticker was the least and B sticker you were allowed I think, I forget how many gallons you were allowed on it. But my Dad was in business, he could get those T stamps and he was allowed $200 per sticker and he could get gas and truck tires anytime but truck tires was hard to come by back during the war when they were rationing. You had to have a very good job in defense to get new tires for automobiles and they were recapping them but the recaps weren't in very good shape back in those days. They were just beginning to recap tires, you know, and they didn't hold up too well. They were made out of reclaimed rubber and that wasn't worth a darn. You were lucky to get 4,000 miles out of some of those recaps but most times they went bad before … I know one fellow put them on and in one week they were gone. [Laughter] Yea, there were a lot of things they were rationing in the food line. Sugar and meats were rationed. They were really strict on the meats, sugar and shoes and that kind of stuff. There was a lot of other things that were being rationed, you needed ration books stamps to get whatever you were going to buy, you know. But as soon as the war was over, most of that, you know, was disbanded, done away with but that rationing in the first days, they were quite strict.
DW Well, let me see. Changes, I guess. Let's talk about changes in the county. Anything change for the better?
EG Well, a lot things are better. I know we rebuilt several roads. A lot these roads around the county were gravel back in my early life. We had crushed slate in Delta and bring it down and put it on for a base but that wasn't practical. It cut too many tires even though it was crushed down to real small but it cut tires so badly and in time they made the county quit using it and then they went with crushed stone. A lot of these county road were rebuilt with slate base, you know, crushed slate but most all the roads now in the county are tar and chip roads or blacktop. There are a few gravel roads. I think Eden Mill, that road is still gravel. There are several of them around. You can get around but buses are forbidden to travel a road unless it's a gravel, school buses, you know. I think some of these macadam roads, if you don't have yellow line down it, the buses are not required to go down those roads. Some of them are so narrow two buses – over there on Rush Road – over in back of, near Rocks State Park, it's so darn narrow in places two cars can hardly pass but it's a macadam road but it's not lined. A lot of the county roads just have the main yellow line down the middle and don't have the white ones on each side. Yea, the buses are restricted off those. I know they can't travel gravel roads at all; they have to be hard surface.
DW There's only one stream you can still ford in the county that I know of.
EG Which one's that?
DW Up around Tabernacle Church, there's no bridge.
EG No bridge.
DW [Laughter]
EG Yea, there used to be a lot of little creeks and streams you had to ford across when I was a young boy. One over on Knopp Road, one on Schuster Road, several of them around here. And over here on Cox Road. When I was a young kid – hey, I know one fellow every week he'd put – on Schuster Road, he take his car and pull it and let it set there and wash it on both sides. Roy Daughton was his name and he had a nice Chevrolet car. He was about four years older than I was. Yea, every Saturday he'd go down and stop right there; had a pair of boots he'd put on and wash his wheels, wash the body. Yea, they used them for several different purposes. When I was on the fire trucks, we'd pump water out of a lot of streams out there. Some of them had bridges over the streams but I pumped out of the streams, you know. If you need water, just go there. Lots of times we had to dam it up a little bit you know, to get water deep enough for the suction hose to charge the hose to load the water. One night we pumped a lot of muddy water in our truck and we had trouble with it but that was over in Baltimore County. Yea, I had a lot of experiences with the fire company and I had a lot of experiences on the farm. I have been attacked by a bull twice on my own farm when I was in the dairy business. One attacked me and just kept throwing me around. As soon as I would get up on my hands and knees to get away it would hit me again and throw me about eight or ten feet. My pants were all torn off. The only thing that saved me was I was close to a barbed wire fence and I rolled underneath the fence. The barbed wire was this high off the ground, the first strand was, I rolled underneath and I laid there a good while. That old bull was up and down that fence trying to get me. About fifteen minutes later he got far enough away that I could get up and get to my pickup truck. My pickup truck was in the field. I was trying to separate some young cows from the other cattle and here that darn bull was in the same pasture and he got me.
DW Wow.
EG I think he, I had a dog with me, I think that's what happened. He was after the darn dog and he hit me and got me down and then he worked me over. He threw me about five or six times and every time he threw me, I'd get up on my hands and knees, he'd get a good hold on me and throw me. When I would land I would land on that old grass. I was all grass stained, shirt torn off.
DW But he didn't have any horns.
EG No horns.
DW That was a good thing.
EG But when you're underneath a place like that, it's [missing dialogue]
Hamilton Amoss was hurt with a bull down in Florida. Hamilton Amoss used to buy a lot of cattle and ship them out of the country. He was loading a boat down there and a darn bull got him. The bull was going up the shoot onto the boat and happened to turn around in the shoot and come back down and Hamilton Amoss had a cane and was beating him on the head with the cane. The bull got him and threw in the air and Hamilton came right down on his shoulder and head and he had to spend about two weeks in the hospital down in Florida. You remember Hamilton, used to have the livestock up near Upper Cross Roads, that big farm just as you go on the cross roads, that little homestead.
DW Yea.
EG He was a good cattle dealer. He produced milk too. He had a large dairy herd there. He had one daughter, too. And John Cairnes married her. John Cairnes married Hamilton Amoss's daughter. (Background speaker said her name was Carolyn.) John's marriage didn't work out.
DW Well, how about changes in the county for the worst?
EG Hmm, there's been a lot of things happen. I don't know what I could say about that.
DW You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. [Laughter]
EG There's been so many darn things. I wouldn't know what to say about that. There's been a lot of things I think I forgot to tell you! [Laughter]
DW Well, we're coming up on the end of the tape. Is there anything else you would like to convey to the listeners…memories?
EG There's a lot of memories but I can't think of them right now.
DW Well, that's ok. You've provided a lot of good information on specific locations of businesses and things that I didn't remember.
EG I know Kefauver Lumber Company – Dad and Mr. Kefauver went into business about the same time in the building supply business and were awful good competitors. They got along great, you know, by being competitors. If we didn't have a certain item and the customer wanted it, we'd go down and borrow it from them and when our shipment come in, we'd return it to him and he did the same thing with us. [Laughter] If he had run out of material or had to go out on a job right away, he'd come up and borrow it for a few days until his shipment come in. We worked together like that. Mr. Kefauver was a wonderful man, Melvin Kefauver. All his brothers died. The last one died just about two months ago. He worked at the business. Luther was his name and they all called him Junior Kefauver. He lived right at the end of Sharon Road, just past Kefauver's, you know. He lived right on the corner. You know where Norman Amrein lived, he lived the third house in, Norman did and Kefauver lived right on the corner. And a fellow by the name Kelp, he was a carpenter, he lived in the middle. All three of those houses were built [missing dialogue] along as you go in off the Jarrettsville Road there. Norman Amrein, when he was born and raised he lived right in that house right opposite, it used to be an old schoolhouse. Cooktown School it used to be, converted over to a home years ago.
DW Torn down, not too many years ago. Wasn't it?
EG No, no, they remodeled that thing.
DW Oh, they remodeled?
EG Let's see, which one did they tear down? It was they tore down in our area. You know, up here at Jim Foard's, that used to be a colored school, you know. That was converted over to a home. Jim owns that. I don't know of anything…I remember one happening in 1958, we had a terrible storm, 36 inches of snow and it put a cow barn down of ours, had 40 some cattle in there and we lost 18 of them, I think it was. I guess you remember that one too.
DW Oh, yes! Nothing moving but the army weasels. [Laughter]
EG That's right! [missing dialogue]
DW I remember that one well. [Laughter]
EG And a hay barn out in the field that would stand, I know. It was made out of concrete block but we built one out of frame, Mr. Bill Kenley built it. Lightning struck it two years after it was built. I think it was built in 1946 burned the same year we were married, 1948. It burned just a month before we got married. We got married in 1948. Dad said build it out of block and we built it out of block. Most of these buildings around this area on the farm, I laid the block in them. I like to lay cinder block. I had help to put the roof on. It was a lot of work. We had two carpenters put the truss roof on. That's been standing there ever since 1949. I built, a year after we were married, I built it. We'd keep our hay and straw in it. I don't know of anything else.
[Background speaker said, "The labor on this house."]
Yes, hey, when we built this house in 1962, the carpenter's labor was $2.10 an hour and the block mason, Mr. Ness, from Shrewsbury, he was $2.35 an hour and the helper, the one that carried the block and brick and made the mortar, he was $1.75. [Laughter] Just think what it is now, 45 years later. They say a stone mason gets anywhere from $40 to 50 an hour. They are very expensive, the stone masons. Yea, labor has gotten terrible, even on the farm. When Dad first started - bought the farm, his dad died and he bought the farm from the widow. Dad was just paying $30 a month for labor but he furnished them a house, electric, fuel and give them half a beef, and hog, and milk every day for $30 a month, a dollar a day for farm help. If he had to hire a man without all those privileges, you have to pay him about $2 or $3 an hour. Yea, that's one thing that's increased more than anything else is labor. You just take your car to the garage and what do they get for an hour in the garage? Jack Saneman he works for BMW, he works out at Towson garage and he said they just jacked their labor in the shop to $110 an hour.
DW That's not even wall time, it's flat rate shop. [Laughter]
EG Oh, God! And John Deere owned tractors, they're $80 and $90 now, I understand. Labor certainly has gotten very expensive, I tell you. Well, that's about all I can think of right now.
DW That's good. That's fine.
EG I can remember dates quite well. George Cairnes said he never saw a fellow that could remember dates like I can. [Laughter] He often calls up here and says, "When did this happen? I know Bunk would know." Sometimes he calls up and I can't give him the correct date. Seems like some people are good on other things and others can't remember a thing. My brother George can remember dates also; he's darn good on dates and when things happened. My other brother, Walt, I don't think he cares much about dates, all he thinks about is the damn whiskey bottle. [Laughter] Yea, but he's a good strong man. I guess you remember Walt, don't you. Big ole hands, got them from handling so much cinder block and brick. I guess we three boys did well by sticking with Dad and we came out of school, he said, "You stick with me, you'll be worth something one of these days." So all three of us stuck with him.
DW Well, I either need to change tapes or say thank you, one of the two. Do you want me to change tapes.
EG Yea.
(Background voice says, "Well, do you have anything else to say?"
EG No, I'm about through.
DW Ok, well, I'll just say thank you for your time.
EG I'm glad you came, glad to be with you, Doug.
DW Ok.
EG Glad to be with you.